


i hold you above everyone

by OpheliaMarina



Category: Scream (TV)
Genre: F/F, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-04
Updated: 2017-09-04
Packaged: 2018-12-23 22:11:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11998956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OpheliaMarina/pseuds/OpheliaMarina
Summary: Emma's barely thirteen, and her braces fit uncomfortably in her mouth. Audrey's still twelve and she'd rather die than go to the seventh grade dance.(A birthday gift for my darlingPhoebe.)





	i hold you above everyone

**Author's Note:**

  * For [crystalesbian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/crystalesbian/gifts).



> HAPPY HAPPY (early) BIRTHDAY PHOEBE!!! Hope you love it!

“This sucks,” Audrey announces, in the back of Maggie’s minivan. They haven’t even gotten to the dance yet.

Emma frowns at her, and it makes her teeth hurt- the braces are still unfamiliar in her mouth, and no matter how many times Audrey calls her Buffybot it doesn’t make her _feel_ any better. Her cheeks are itchy with pimples she couldn’t quite cover up, and the dress she’s wearing doesn’t quite fit around her arms and her ribs, and altogether she doesn’t need Audrey to make a night that’s already shaping up to look pretty bad even worse. “Shush.”

“Shush,” Mom says, in almost perfect unison, turning into the school parking lot. “Cheer up, Audrey, it’s going to be lots of fun. It’s a nice night. You both look very pretty.”

Audrey’s wearing a white shirt, a black skirt that Emma’s a hundred percent sure her dad forced her into, and leggings that are now too short, and pinching her legs. Audrey sees her looking, makes a face, and says, “I know they’re too small. The last time I wore these was fifth grade.” 

Two year old leggings on Audrey and what feels like a fifty year old dress on Emma, then. It’s all pink and nylon and itch, and it makes Emma feel like a baby, like a two year old dressed up like Glinda the Good Witch. Her mom had cooed over it, but that doesn’t mean anything. There’s still a part of her mom that’s a hippie.

The car pulls up on the curb, and Emma’s mom waits, expectantly, for them to climb out of the backseat. They both just sit there. She groans. “Come on, girls. It’ll be fun! Just give it a try, won’t you? If anything goes wrong, I’ll come right back.”

“You could just go take us to see Captain America again,” Audrey mutters. “And not tell my dad.”

“ _Out_ ,” Emma’s mom says, and grudgingly they both shuffle out of the car.

The air’s weirdly chilly for September. It makes all the skin on Emma rise up, in embarrassingly noticeable goosebumps. She grabs Audrey’s hand, and hurries towards the gym entrance.

They turn to face each other, in front of the doors to look each other over. “Listen,” Audrey says. “I say forty-five minutes. Then I pretend to twist my ankle- or twist it on purpose, your choice- and we get out of here.”

Her glasses are crooked. Emma reaches out and straightens them, then tucks the rest of Audrey’s shaggy hair behind her ears. “You look really pretty,” she says decisively.

Audrey blinks at her, then scowls and looks away, cheeks red. “Don’t lie to me,” she says owlishly.

And Emma finally laughs, takes Audrey’s hand, and heads inside.

\---

A big problem is that they don’t know any of the songs. 

They’ve been here for almost twenty minutes and for five rap/pop songs Audrey’s turned her nose up at, and standing next to the punch bowl the whole time. Emma’s had four cups even though they made her teeth increasingly sore and she really needs to pee but she’s afraid that as soon as she leaves to go to the bathroom a song she knows will come on.

That line of thinking hasn’t been working so far. She takes a fifth cup.

“Twisting my ankle is still on the table,” Audrey mutters. “We can move up the timetable if you want.”

“Shut up,” Emma says, and downs the whole cup in one go, gritting her teeth. “They’ve got to play Jonas Brothers or something soon.”

Nina walks by, wearing probably the prettiest dress Emma’s ever seen, green and short with long legs and a _chest_ and red hair that Emma wants or at least wants to touch. “Hey Audrey!” she shouts, and Audrey’s head snaps up at the same time that Emma’s ducks down. “Digging the outfit! I loved it in last year’s dumpster fire.”

“Looking forward to seeing you in this year’s!” Audrey shouts back, even as the blonde next to Nina cracks up and Emma tugs at her arm, trying to sway her out of it. Audrey just ripples with the motion, huffs, and turns back to Emma. “Ugh. Come _on_ , let’s go ho-”

And finally, finally, a song Emma knows comes on.

“Oh!” she says, and doesn’t let Audrey finish, just takes her wrist and drags her onto the dance floor. It takes her a second to realize that everyone else has stopped jumping around. 

It’s more of a shuffle now. There are arms out and stick-straight everywhere, the humidity of bodies suddenly thinner. Emma realizes a split second later than Audrey that it’s a slow dance, and she’s still puzzling it out when Audrey tries to tug her wrist out of Emma’s grip. “Hey-”

But Emma snatches it back, draws Audrey back in. “Dance with me.”

Audrey’s eyes bug. They catch the silvery light of the disco ball, and Emma can see the little flecks in her irises, the ones that only come out when Audrey’s eyes go huge like that. She tugs harder, and puts Audrey’s hand on her waist. “Come on. I want to dance. At least once.”

There are other girls swaying around them, so Audrey doesn’t have any excuse to say no. She hesitates a second longer, then puts her other hand on Emma’s hip. “Why do I have to be the boy, I’m shorter.”

“You’re meaner,” Emma says logically, looping her arms around Audrey’s neck. “And my hair is longer.”

That makes Audrey laugh, at least, and her hands go from clammy and limp to secure on Emma’s waist. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Do you wanna switch?” Emma says, even as she draws Audrey’s head closer. Holding her arms out that far hurts.

Audrey just shakes her head, lowering her gaze. They come closer together, stepping back and forth. Emma knows all the words to the song, and is singing along softly in her head, keeping track of the pace. “No. It’s fine. I just- I don’t know how to do this.”

Emma giggles, and it makes Audrey’s hair puff back by her ears, and clouds her glasses a little. She unwinds one arm to reach out and smudge the fog off the glass, then twines her fingers behind the top knob of Audrey’s spine again. “No one does. Look at everyone else.”

They both look around. The gym is lit all red and purple, hazy in the sweat and humidity, and everyone is just sort of stumbling back and forth, a clump of outstretched arms and stiff legs and clopping feet. The sound of swishing dresses is almost louder than the music. Squinting, Emma can even seen Nina looking awkward, her elbows resting on the shoulders of a boy much taller than she is.

Audrey laughs, right next to her ear, and Emma startles and turns back. They’re very close together now, closer than everyone else is, and it’s almost okay because they’re both girls but there’s still something about Audrey’s breath that makes Emma nervous.

But Audrey doesn’t seem to notice. She just giggles again. “God. Guess they are turning up to listen to my dad on Sundays after all. Plenty of room for Jesus.”

Emma laughs too, breathy, and it makes Audrey look back at her. Her eyes go from crinkled to wide again, and it’s too easy to see the flecks this time. With a start, Emma realizes her arms are wrapped so close around Audrey’s neck that her fingertips are touching her elbows.

“Oh,” Audrey says.

And the song ends. 

Everyone lets go of each other. Emma’s arms drop so fast her wrists knock into her hipbones. Audrey takes a second longer to let go of her waist.

“I have to pee,” Emma says, gracelessly, and hurries to the bathroom without waiting to ask if Audrey does too.

\---

And then they’re back at the punch bowl.

“I like that song,” Audrey says. “I’d never heard it before.”

“My mom used to sing it a lot,” Emma says. “I think it’s pretty.”

And she’s made peace with this, with one dance. It’s better than she thought she would get. It’s better than she thought she’d get out of Audrey.

Audrey’s nodding and Emma’s reaching back for a sixth glass of punch when a voice behind them says, “Emma, right?” 

They both turn around. It’s a boy Emma can’t quite place, in the mix of overpowering darkness and overpowering cologne. She smiles at him anyway. “Hi?”

He’s wearing a tie but also shorts. Audrey’s glaring at him already, hand clenched around the plastic punch cup. He says, “You look really nice tonight.”

No boy has ever told Emma she looks nice before. This might actually be the first time a boy her own age has said more than five words to her. She blinks once, twice, almost opens her mouth to smile and then remembers her braces and keeps it closed-lipped. “Oh. Thank you.”

She’s smoothing out of the bottom of her skirt in newly unpainful self-awareness when he says, “Hey, uh, would you want to dance with me?”

Looking up again, so fast her neck cracks a little bit, the first thing she sees is Audrey’s hand crunching the plastic cup into a vise. It makes her too nervous, for a long moment, to look up at the boy’s face for real. “Um. That’d… be really-”

And she works herself up to look into his face, and she does, and he’s _laughing_.

He’s not even looking back at her. His head is turned, over his shoulder. “Oh, man. Hey Jer! Jer! Yeah, she really thought-”

The sentence never finishes, and Emma barely even has the time to feel blood, hot and humiliated, run up into her cheeks, because before it can Audrey’s picked up the punch bowl and brought the whole thing down on the boy’s head. 

\---

They don’t get into that much trouble, all things considered. They just get kicked out of the dance. 

So does what’s-his-face, and it’s kind of awkward, waiting on the curb for Maggie with him standing a few feet away and refusing to make eye contact. He’s shivering in his red-stained dress shirt, staring resolutely at the ground, and it makes Emma cold to look at him. The goosebumps are back on her skin.

Audrey notices. Audrey’s been looking at her this whole time. There’s punch stains on the wrists of her shirt too. She says, “Are you cold?”

Emma shakes her head, but puts her arms around herself anyway. “No. I’m okay.”

There’s an aborted gesture, at Audrey’s elbows, and when her arms fall limp again she looks guilty. “I wish I had brought a jacket.”

“I told you I’m not cold,” Emma says, and it hurts her throat. She lowers her own arms again. It makes her feel worse.

So does Audrey’s hand, slipping into hers, searching for something that Emma’s words aren’t giving her. Emma can’t look at her again, after their fingers curl together. One point of contact alone is already almost too much. 

They’re silent for a while. Emma’s house is a six minute drive from here. It’s been four minutes by now.

“Don’t be mad at me,” Audrey whispers. “Don’t. I’m glad I did it.”

And that burns a little bit, because Emma’s not mad at Audrey but she also doesn’t want to be told to not be. She can be if she wants. She can feel nauseous and awful and guilty and ugly if she wants. Audrey’s never been able to stop that, and she has no right to tell her to stop. “I’m not mad at you.”

She wants to be, as soon as she says so, but she’s not. If she was really mad at Audrey, she’d have to let go of her hand.

Maggie comes a minute earlier than she’s supposed to, and Emma climbs into the back with Audrey even though her mom reaches over to unlock the passenger side. They’re all quiet, even when Maggie looks over and sees the boy with punch all over him.

When they get out of the parking lot, she says, quietly, “I’m sorry, girls.”

“It’s okay,” Emma murmurs, and lets go of Audrey’s hand. 

She feels Audrey look at her when she does, but this time she doesn’t want to look back. She keeps staring, resolutely, out the window. Then she hears Audrey speak. “It’s fine. Please don’t tell my dad.”

Audrey forgets _please_ a lot. It startles Emma, almost enough to look at her, but before she has to Maggie says, “I won’t, honey. I made some popcorn at home, why don’t you stay the night. You and Emma can watch Lord of the Rings or something else nice.”

“Okay,” Audrey says, without much feeling to it, and there’s a brief tapping noise as she texts her dad. Then silence again.

It lasts all the way home. Emma can’t speak around it. Her teeth hurt worse than they ever have.

\---

The movie’s already in the player, menu flashing, and there are soft blankets and popcorn on the floor when they get downstairs. It makes it very easy to just hit play and lie down and not talk and not think.

It works for twenty minutes. Then Audrey speaks over Legolas. “You _are_ mad at me.”

Emma rolls over, onto her stomach. “No, I’m not.”

“You are. If you weren’t you’d look at me.”

So Emma looks at her. Audrey’s eyes always look biggest in the dark, so they’re easy to find like this. She’s wearing a pair of Emma’s pajamas now, an old Taylor Swift shirt and bottoms that match Emma’s top. “I’m not mad at you. I just feel bad.”

“Because of that guy?” Audrey says, eyes narrowing in the dark. “You shouldn’t. He was a jerk.”

And just like that Emma can’t look at her anymore. She rolls over onto her back again. “It’s not just that. I know he’s a jerk. It’s just… it’s just.”

Audrey doesn’t ask what. Emma doesn’t know if she’s waiting or if she doesn’t want to know.

There’s something not very nice in her that makes her want to tell Audrey and make her feel bad too. But that’s only going to make Emma nauseous and exhausted, and she’s already tired of herself tonight. She says, carefully, “It was a joke to everyone. That some guy would want to dance with me.”

“But you didn’t want to dance with him-”

“It doesn’t matter!” Emma bursts out. Louder than the TV. Immediately she goes back down into a whisper. “It’s not about him, it’s- I want-” 

The retainer in her mouth is making stumbling over sentences worse. She takes a deep breath, and says, “I just wish you weren’t the only person in the whole world who likes me.”

That makes Audrey quiet. For another four minutes. Emma just watches Gimli chop orcs in the silence. It makes her feel a little bit better.

Then Audrey says, “I don’t care if no one in the world likes me but you, though.”

Emma looks at her. This time Audrey isn’t looking back. She’s the one staring at the ceiling. 

She says, “I really don’t care. They suck, Emma. They’re vapid losers who don’t care about anyone. You’re beautiful- no, stop. You are. You’re way more beautiful than they are, because you’re real. You’re smart and nice and you care about other people. I’d rather you like me than anyone else. And if they can’t tell that about you, you shouldn’t care about them.”

Then she pushes all her hair out of her face, scooches down a little, right under the TV, and goes silent. 

Emma doesn’t know what to say. So she doesn’t say anything.

They watch the next half of the movie without having to talk. Then Emma sits up, and finally looks at Audrey again.

Audrey’s eyes have gone glassy, _Return of the King_ reflecting underneath her lashes. Emma watches it go for a few minutes, surface level on Audrey, then lays back down flat and places her head gently, carefully, on Audrey’s chest.

As soon as she does, Audrey goes so stiff and so still one of her ribs pokes Emma in the cheek. Emma adjusts slightly, and just settles more comfortably above Audrey’s stomach.

They’re just still for a minute. Emma kind of feels like Audrey’s holding her breath; her stomach isn’t rising or falling very much, but her heart’s beating very fast. Probably lack of oxygen. Emma evens out her own inhales, breathes deep. It’s how Mom used to do it, when Emma was younger and couldn’t sleep and Dad wasn’t here or didn’t want to be here.

“What?” Audrey whispers, so soft it almost gets lost under Aragorn’s shriek of righteous orc-inspired fury. Emma feels it more than she hears it.

Her breathing still doesn’t even. Emma adjusts her head again. “Nothing,” she whispers back, finding a new place against Audrey’s shoulder. It’s bonier, and there’s no heartbeat now, but they feel closer together than before. “Just. Thank you.”

Another pause. Then, “For _what_?” Audrey says. Frustrated, not gentle.

Because she really doesn’t know. Everything Audrey does for Emma, she does it without thinking. Like it’s all just reflex. Like it’s all just love.

Emma kisses her on the cheek, and then closes her eyes. 

They don’t say anything else. She waits, and waits, and waits for Audrey’s breathing to even out, and in the end she falls asleep before it does.


End file.
